How to Stitch on a Card (in 10 Minutes)

Sometimes the WIP (work in progress) baskets are overflowing a little too much and you just need a quick and simple project to accomplish so that you can say, “Hey look! I did something!” 😆 So that’s exactly what I did!

I had been cleaning out my desk when I saw a card I had in my drawer and thought, “I bet I could stitch on this.” It only took about 10 minutes and left me feeling very accomplished (and bonus: I now have a cute customized card for a friend!).

Full disclosure: this was my very first time doing this. I was completely winging it—no fancy tools, no YouTube-perfect plan or anything. But it was fun and I think you’ll enjoy trying it yourself too!

What I Used:

• A pre-designed note card

• Pilot Frixion Pen
  

• Needle

• Embroidery floss

• Scissors

How to Do It:

1. Come up with your concept.
   Find a card that either has a design you can stitch on top of, or grab a blank card and create your own. A short verse or a single word would work well here! Something like "Rejoice" stitched over a blank front would be beautiful! While you do this, plan what stitches you'll use because that will determine your next steps.

2. Prep the card.
   Since I decided to stitch over the pre-existing letters on the card, I knew a back stitch might be the easiest stitch to try. Planning this in advance helped me know how to place my holes.
   
   With that in mind, I used a pilot frixion pen to prep where each of those holes would go by marking it with a single dot. The spacing of your holes will depend on the size of your design, but keeping your holes around ¼” away from each other works well.

3. Punch your holes.
   Open up your card (you don’t want to punch through two layers) and start punching your holes. I used my size 22 chenille needle for this but I think next time it may be better to use my size 5 embroidery needle to help create smaller holes.
   
   When I punched my holes, I tried to use a cutting mat but found that I needed to pick the card up to better punch through the cardstock.

4. Stitch
   Pick out your floss and start stitching. I used a simple back stitch (with 6 strands) to fill in these letters. One thing to note is that it’s much harder to “find” the hole with your needle unlike with fabric, so I often found myself having to turn the card to find the next place to put my needle. Not the end of the world, but it was “different” than what I am used to. When you are done stitching, you can just tie a knot on the inside of the card as you normally would with fabric. Your stitching WILL be seen on the other side of the card, but I don’t think it would be worth covering it up. You could choose to do so with some cardstock and glue!

5. Remove pen marks.
   Next I used an iron on low heat and very quickly and gently went over the card to remove any pen marks.

6. Enjoy your card and write your note.
   Admire your quick project and then write a good old-fashioned snail-mail letter to someone!

A Few Honest Thoughts:

• This was super fun! It was a step outside my norm and gave me a fun little side project to do that didn’t feel too daunting.

• If I do this again, I’d 100% buy a punch tool to punch the holes (vs using my needle) to see if that creates a cleaner hole. It might not, but I would at least want to give it a try.

• Next time I'll also grab a piece of styrofoam to lay my card on top of so that when I punch my holes I don’t have to lift my card.

Want to watch a video of the process? Check that out below!

So what do you think? Will you try it out? It for sure makes for a fun way to personalize a card! Imagine all the possibilities—scripture based cards, florals, house outlines, etc!